Second-harmonic generation of structured light by transition-metal dichalcogenide metasurfaces

Abstract

Structured light characterized by spatially inhomogeneous optical fields found rich applications in optical communication, sensing, microscopy, manipulation, and quantum information. While generation of structured light has been extensively studied in linear optics, the nonlinear optical process, particularly in two-dimensional (2D) materials, is an emerging alternative for generating structured light at shorter wavelengths. In this work, we theoretically demonstrate that radially and azimuthally polarized beams and vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum could be generated at second-harmonic frequencies by using 2D material-based metasurfaces comprising the same transition-metal dichalcogenide meta-atoms. Manipulation of translations and orientations of anisotropically nonlinear meta-atoms exhibiting a threefold rotation-symmetrical crystalline structure induces strong nonlinear spin-orbital coupling, which enables simultaneous control of spatial phase and polarization in second-harmonic generation. The nonlinear transition-metal dichalcogenide metasurface proposed is promising for on-chip integration of nonlinear generation of structured light.